Sports Facility Authority confirms it won’t block Washington football team’s name and logo at the Dome

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The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority confirmed Friday that it won’t block the use of the Washington professional football team’s name and logo at the Metrodome during the Nov. 7 game between Washington and the Minnesota Vikings.

Representatives of the American Indian Movement and the ACLU had asked the authority and the Vikings to block use of the name, which they consider offensive and derogatory.

At their meeting this morning, Sports Facilities Authority officials again said they lack the authority to ban the name and logo at the Dome.

In a plea to block the usage, Charles Samuelson, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, had said:

The name, logo and mascot are racist imagery that does not honor anyone, but instead perpetuate stereotypes that are particularly hurtful and offensive given the history of forced assimilation and brutality that Native Americans were forced to endure in Minnesota and throughout the country.

He suggested that the Sports Facilities Authority, the Vikings and the media simply call the team “Washington.”

Here is an extremely modest proposal. Instead of trying to legally block the Washington team from displaying offending images why not just vote for and send a nonbinding request, to the Washington team, the NFL, and the Vikings, just asking them to leave those images at home? Maybe making a moral argument would be more effective than a legal argument both in the short and long term.